


Dragon Among Wolves

by missmissa85



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family, Post Season 7, R plus L does not equal J, Reunions, Romance, Sibling squabbles, bran stark is still in there, or does it?, post boatsex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-24 02:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmissa85/pseuds/missmissa85
Summary: Post Season 7.  They have all been separated for too long.  In the midst of chaos, the pack returns to Winterfell to protect the realms of men.  As they learn one another's secrets and pains, they find that history has already started to repeat itself.  Winter has come, and even with a Dragon in their midst, the pack must survive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I feel it necessary to explain how I started watching GoT: I watched the first season a few years ago before the third season had finished airing. I found the constant sexposition annoying and unnecessary. So I stopped watching until a few friends informed me that the boobs to dragons ratio had dropped significantly, and since I'm on nerd news websites all the time, I still knew about all of GoT's main events and characters. So, I watched seasons 6 & most of 7 (only up to Eastwatch was out at the time) in a weekend and then realized I really needed to go back and watch the other three seasons in about a week. So, if my details of the history are wrong, binging 65 episodes in two weeks is to blame.

"Did he say when he would get here?"

"Of course not," Sansa replied. "Not only is it hard to send word in this weather, he's traveling with a woman most of the North would like to shoot on sight.  And he’s Jon.  He’s not exactly a sharer."

"Doesn't this Daenerys have dragons and Dothraki? Surely someone's seen them coming."

"I imagine the Dothraki are having some trouble adjusting to the climate," Sansa said, her eyes never leaving the scrolls on her desk.

Arya guffawed at the smirk on her sister's lips. "You are a proper Northern lady now; poking fun at those who can't take the cold."

Sansa smiled properly. "To be fair, most Northern lords couldn't take the heat of King's Landing."

Arya suddenly snorted before a laugh bubbled from her throat.  Sansa stared at her with a bemused expression.  “What could possibly be so funny?” she asked.

“I just had a picture in my mind of Jon in King’s Landing wearing one of our great, fur-lined cloaks,” Arya replied, calming herself.  “Imagine how truly silly he would look.”

Sansa laughed, her shoulders shaking at the image taking root in her mind.  “He would.  He would look so overdressed.  Gods, he would have hated it there if they had to stay more than a day.”

As their laughter petered out, Arya said, “What does he look like now?”

            Sansa regarded her sister from the corner of her eye.  “Like Jon.  Though he has something approaching a man’s beard now.”

            Arya rolled her eyes, but smiled at Sansa’s jest.

            The redhead continued, “He has a few scars on his face.  One along here,” she motioned to the right side of her temple, “was new when I met him at Castle Black.  It should be mostly healed now.  There are faded scars on his forehead and cheeks as though something tried to claw his eyes out.”

            Arya nodded solemnly.

            “He wears his hair shorter.”

            “What?” Arya exclaimed, her head popping up suddenly.

            “He pulls most of it back like Father used to, except with a knot instead of a tail,” Sansa explained.

            “I don’t believe it,” Arya said flatly, shaking her head.  “Jon never liked a girl as much as he liked his own hair.”

            Arya laughed at the jest Robb often tossed at Jon.  Sansa smiled perfunctorily, but it did not reach her eyes.  The laughter in the younger sister’s throat faded as she took in the elder’s suddenly somber state.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “Just something Little Finger said.”

            “I thought we were done listening to Little Finger.”

            Sansa looked up at her sister, who was now standing, a hand resting on the Valerian steel dagger.  She knew Arya didn’t mean it as a threat, but it took all of her self-control not to flinch.  “I know he was a liar, but he was rarely wrong about the world,” she explained.  “He told me that Daenerys is quite beautiful, and young, and unmarried.  And he reminded me that Jon his also young, and free to marry.”

            Arya’s eyebrows arched upward.  “You think our brother is in love with a Targaryen?” she asked dubiously.

            Sansa shrugged weakly.  “Look at what’s happened.  I know she has dragons, and dragons have fire, which kills wights, but I don’t think that would be enough.  Jon isn’t stupid.  He knows how the Northern lords will feel.  Why? Why else would he bend the knee?”

            Arya shrugged as a smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth.  “Perhaps she ‘bent the knee’ first.”

            “Arya!” Sansa cried, her face burning a shade to match her hair.

            The younger sister doubled over laughing.  “You should see your face.”

            “Our mother would be ashamed of you right now.”

            “And of you for understanding the joke,” Arya replied, still shaking with laughter.

            Sansa huffed and rolled her eyes as a knock sounded and a guard entered the room.  He dutifully ignored the laughing sister and said, “Milady, a smith’s come from Eastwatch with Dragonglass from your brother.  Says he’s got a letter for you from Ser Davos.”

            Sansa glared momentarily at Arya who was still attempting to contain herself.  “Send him in, please.”

            A broad, young man with a short head and wide-set eyes walked into the room.  Despite the crackling fire, he still shivered from the cold, and Sansa immediately surmised he was not from the North.  He didn’t quite meet her gaze as he began, “Milady, I’m—”

            “Gendry?”

            The young man’s eyes flitted to the young woman suddenly facing him.  Those eyes widened as his mouth fell open.  His shock only lasted a moment, however, and a smile replaced his expression of awe.  “I heard you were here,” he said, never taking his eyes off of her.  “I hoped I might see you.”

            He reached for her and she recoiled making a strangled sound before she fled from the room through the open door.  Sansa looked from the spot her sister vacated to the young man before her.  He looked as though he had been doused in ice water.  She felt ice start to flood her own veins as she stood up and gripped the dagger she concealed in her sleeve.  Arya didn’t run from anything.  Why would she run from this man?

            “How do you know my sister?” Sansa asked, her voice low as she stood from her desk.

            “Milady, I’m not sure—”

            “How?” she growled, loosening the dagger from its sheath.

            Gendry blinked at the sound of sliding metal and held up his hands.  “I never did your sister any harm, milady.  I swear it.  We traveled together, a long time ago after your father…  We were going to the Night’s Watch, but we were captured by Lannisters and then the Brotherhood, and then we were separated.  She saved my life more than once.  We were friends.  We were…family.”

            Sansa stared at this man as his story made him retreat into himself and become suddenly small.  Arya hadn’t said anything of her travels, and Sansa hadn’t pressed her.  Sansa was unwilling to share the most horrid details of her own experience, and she allowed her sister the same luxury.  Consequently, she had nothing to verify this Gendry’s story, and no explanation as to why his presence caused the fearless and dangerous Arya Stark to flee the room.

            She sheathed her knife and said, “Stay here,” to him as she glided past.  A nod to her guard and he stood in the doorway, blocking Gendry’s potential escape.  She pursed her lips as she swept through the halls.  She walked with a straight back and a raised chin, though she honestly had no idea where her sister would go.  She wound through the old halls until she came to Arya’s chamber, the same one she had used as a girl. The door was cracked and she timidly pushed it aside, unsure of what she might find.  Arya was standing before the fire, her fists clenched at her sides.

            “Arya?” Sansa asked gently.  “Arya, did you know that man?”

            The dark-haired girl simply nodded.

            “He said you travelled together after Father was killed,” Sansa said.

            “We did.  I thought him dead.  I heard what some of the Red Priestesses do when I was in Braavos.  They burn people alive to sacrifice to their Lord,” Arya explained.

            “But he’s not dead, Arya,” Sansa pointed out, stepping further into the room.  “Why did you run from him?  Did he hurt you? Did he—”

            “He’s not Ramsey Bolton,” Arya replied sharply, snapping her head toward her sister.

            Sansa flinched at Arya’s words.  The hurt was quickly replaced with anger.  “I am _not_ equating your hurts with my own.  I simply want to know who this man is.”

            “Jon’s opinion not matter to you?” Arya said, imperiously looking back into the flames of the fireplace.

            “Jon is Ned Stark’s son through-and-through which means he is far too trusting for his own good.  _You_ , on the other hand…”

            Arya’s eyes locked on her sister’s cool expression.  “He knew who I was, and he kept my secret.  We protected one another.  He is a good man.”

            Sansa’s brow furrowed.  “Then why did you run?”

            “Because I was so different then to what I am now,” Arya said quietly, a solitary tear running down her face.  “I’m not sure I want him to know me as I am now.”

            Sansa tugged on her sister’s shoulder and pulled her into a tight hug.  Arya, after a moment returned her sister’s embrace.  They stood like that for a long moment until Sansa released her sister enough to look down on her face.

            “Time and trials have changed us all.  They’ve likely changed him as well. Don’t be ashamed to show him who you are.  I’m not ashamed of you.  And judging from the expression on his face when you left him standing there, he won’t be either.”

            All Arya could do was stare as her sister swept from the room.

* * *

 

            Daenerys was a constant surprise to him.  If he was honest, he expected to be roasted alive like his grandfather had been the moment he first refused to bend the knee to her.  She was nothing like the stories of the Mad King.  She had never known him.  Jon had been brought up to believe blood mattered, and he believed it did, but Daenerys was proof that experiences shaped a person more than blood.

            Though she was obviously comfortable riding astride a horse, he could see the shivers running through her even under her hooded cloak.

            “Are you very cold, Your Grace?”

            She looked at him and smiled, mirth reaching her azure eyes.  “No one is close enough to hear, Jon.  You don’t have to call me ‘your grace.’”

            He could feel his cheeks reddening under her gaze.  “I just…don’t want to fall into any bad habits.”

            “Is that what I am to you?  A bad habit?”

            He reached out and took her hand, and met her eyes with unusual solemn intensity.  “No.  I’d never think that of you,” he told her, a hard edge to his voice.

            Daenerys smiled and squeezed his hand.  “I was only teasing you, Jon,” she said before letting go of his hand and spurring her horse onward.

            Jon silently cursed himself for his unnecessary dramatics.  He glanced behind them to find Tyrion pointedly ignoring them, and Ser Davos smirking at them.  Jorah Mormont’s eyes spared him a sad look before turning his attention to the snowy landscape.  Jon urged his horse on slightly to catch her.  She still shivered visibly.

            “Sure you don’t want another cloak?”

            She glared at him in mock annoyance.  “I fear the horse couldn’t bear the weight.  I didn’t think about the cold affecting me.  The heat never bothered me at all.”

            “I suppose it wouldn’t having grown up in such warm climates.”

            “It’s not just that,” she admitted.  “I have walked through fires and not been burned, not even felt the heat.  Not even as would-be rapists screamed their last around me.”

            She didn’t look at him, though his eyes seemed unable to leave her face, which had gone so suddenly hard.  He had never had a knack for humor, but he felt the need to do something, anything to remove the icy façade he first saw of her at Dragonstone.

            “So that ‘unburnt’ bit was meant to be taken literally then?”

            She turned her head so he could see her imperiously raised eyebrow beneath her hood.  “As literal as the knife you took to your heart.”

            He had told her the truth after their first night together on the ship.  He couldn’t keep it in as he was laid bare before her and her fingers and lips traced every scar.  He saw the fire in her eyes as he spoke of betrayal and heard the barely audible sigh when he assured her the guilty had been hanged.  She hadn’t asked how he came to be alive, and he hadn’t offered.

            “You never get used to it,” he told her finally as their silence became maddening.

            “What?”

            “The cold,” he told her.  “You never really get used to it, no matter how much it seeps into your bones.”

            “You are so very reassuring, Jon Snow,” she said, her tone dour, though her eyes lit with mirth and a smirk tugged at the corner of her lips.

            He chuckled and returned her smile, exercising every bit of his self-control to not reach out for her hand as they rode side-by-side.  Their silence became comfortable until a commotion rose from behind them.  Jon reined in his horse and turned in his saddle.  He heard voices confirming it, but he could make out the blonde hair of Brienne of Tarth riding hard toward them in the distance.  Their small knot of advisers circled them as she drew closer, the line of riders and supplies slowly coming to a halt.

            “Your Grace,” Brienne said breathlessly to Jon before repeating to Daenerys, “Your Grace.”

            “Lady Brienne, what’s wrong?  We didn’t expect to meet you so soon on the road,” Jon said.

            “I’ve brought word from Ser Jaime Lannister,” Brienne began, steadying her horse as Podrick rode up beside her.

            “Oh, fuck,” Tyrion said from behind them, elongating the syllable of the swear.

            “I’m afraid so,” Brienne agreed.

            “Cersei’s betrayed us,” Daenerys stated darkly.

            “It’s worse than that, actually,” Brienne continued.  “Euron Greyjoy isn’t sailing back to the Iron Islands.  He’s going to Essos to ferry the Golden Company back here.”

            Jon took a deep breath.  “We might have hope on that front.  Theon is going after his sister.  He’ll slow Euron down, or maybe even stop him.”

            “You really believe little Theon can do that?” Tyrion asked scornfully.

            Jon turned to face him.  “Aye.  I do.  I know what he’ll do for his own sister because I know what he’s done for mine.”

            “Be that as it may,” Daenerys interrupted, “it doesn’t explain why the Kingslayer shared this information with you, Lady Brienne.”

            “He’s left King’s Landing.  He’s riding North with Ser Bronn and some other volunteers; mostly guards who were present at the meeting.  He’s going to martial any fighters he can find,” Brienne explained. 

            “I don’t know what’s more shocking: the fact that my brother has left my sister, or that Bronn is volunteering to help.”

            Jon looked back at the long train of men behind them.  He turned back to see Daenerys looking at him with sad eyes.

            “This is it. This is all we’re guaranteed,” she said.

            “My queen,” Jorah said, pulling his horse alongside her.  “This news has made the road has become even more treacherous.  We must get you to safety.”

            “If we ride hard, we can reach Winterfell by nightfall,” John told them.

            “As I am barely suited to ride at all, I will stay behind with the train,” Tyrion declared.  “Lady Brienne and Ser Jorah, would you ride with a small number of king’s and queen’s guards?”

            “Of course, my lord.”

            “I don’t think that would be proper.”

            All eyes turned to stare at Jorah.  The older man looked directly at Jon and said, “It would be a dishonor to your father’s memory were I to set foot in Winterfell.”

            Jon released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.  “There is no dishonor now, Ser Jorah,” he assured the older man.

            “Northerners,” Tyrion scoffed under his breath.  “Are you going, or aren’t you?”

            Jon looked over at Davos who replied, “I’m too old to ride hard anywhere.  Go.  I’ll see you soon.”

            Within minutes they had set off, practically galloping.  A sense of dread crept up his spine, but there was something else as well.  He was going home; a home that wasn’t an empty castle. He was going to see Arya again.  He was going to see Bran.  And they were going to meet the woman he loved.  Their doom may be close at hand, but he would relish whatever joy he could draw before it came.

* * *

 

            Arya didn’t quite understand the emotions racing through her being.  She wasn’t afraid precisely.  Hesitant.  Yes, hesitant was the right word.  She was not the girl Gendry knew.  She had been so consumed with vengeance for so long, she wasn’t sure young Arya even still breathed in her spirit.  But she could still remember that person, remember what that person wanted.  Perhaps that would be enough.

            Though the sun was slipping past the horizon, but Gendry still worked the forge as though supper was not about to be served.  The other smiths were carefully replacing their tools and hanging up their oiled aprons.  Some even laughed at their own bawdy jokes as they made their way to the servants’ dining hall.  She avoided being seen by them.  They would show her courtesy as a lady of Winterfell, and she did not want that; not with what she needed to do.

            Dragonglass wasn’t so much forged as shaped, and it was meticulous work.  Gendry was still at it, making sure the blade he was crafting was perfectly sharp and balanced.

"D'you not eat anymore?" she asked finally after watching him for a long moment

Gendry stopped scraping the shard of dragonglass on the table before him, and slowly turned to face her. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth though his eyes were baleful.

"I eat," he told her simply. "It's just too bloody cold to stop working."

Arya scoffed. "You're such a southerner. Sure you didn't freeze your cock off during your adventure beyond the wall?”

He rolled his eyes before turning to the bellows.  “I’ve still got my cock, thank you.”

Arya arched her eyebrows.  “Oh? Why don’t swing it out and take a piss, then?”

Gendry turned away from the blazing forge and dropped his tongs on the ground.  He closed the gap between them until he was standing over her.  There was no menace in his eyes, however, as he said, “If I swing out my cock, I’m not gonna be taking a piss.”

She smiled up at him even as she wrapped her hand around her dagger.  “Is that a threat?”

The smile on his lips reached his crystalline eyes.  “It’s a promise…milady.”

His gaze softened and he stared down into her brown eyes.  She didn’t know how long they stood there, but his steady, ponderous look was starting to unravel her.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, tearing her eyes away from his.

“The girl I used to know,” he replied softly, the teasing edge gone from his voice.  “I think I see her.  Just there.”

His hand was on her face and Arya was suddenly gripped with an icy terror.  She couldn’t run.  She didn’t want to.  As it happened, she didn’t really have time to think on it before his lips pressed gently down on hers.  She stilled at the sudden unfamiliarity, but an ancient and unbidden reflex took over and she returned the pressure to his lips.

His lips left hers with a small pop and he rested his forehead against hers, his hand still cupping one side of her face.

“If you tell me you’ve always wanted to do that, I’m going to have to put a hole in you,” she warned him, only half teasing.

Gendry laughed loudly and shook his head, still holding her close.  “No, I’ve only wanted to do that since I saw you earlier today,” he assured her.  “But seeing you again?  I feel as though I’ve wanted that forever.”

The untamed savage Arya thought she’d vanquished suddenly erupted and she grasped his shirt and pulled him down until his lips were on hers again.  She briefly deemed herself terrible at kissing as they came together in a clatter of teeth and uneven rhythm.  But then he responded with hands on her hips, drawing her closer.  And she realized kissing was much like a duel, but the goal was pleasure rather than survival.  And Arya was quite good at dueling.

The sound of shouting guards and the creak of the wooden gates reached her muddled senses.  She broke away from Gendry, catching her breath, and turned to see a flash of white fur running past toward the Winterfell’s main gates.

“Go,” she heard Gendry say quietly as he loosed his tight grip on her hips.

She ran from the forge into the courtyard.  There was a knot of tired people and horses streaming through as the gates quickly shut behind them.  A figure in a fur-lined cloak was crouching in front of Ghost, a small smile across his face as he stroked the direwolf’s head.

“Jon?” she said, surprising herself with the choked sound of her own voice.

He looked up at the sound.  The smile on his face was replaced with a look of awe.  Even in the dimming light, she could see the tears forming in his eyes.  He stood and swiftly moved toward her and she could no longer hold herself back.  She kicked up snow as she ran into her brother’s arms.  He lifted her off her feet as he had so many years earlier.  He was laughing, a sound she so rarely heard before and could hardly believe she was hearing again.  And then she realized she was laughing too.  She had not laughed since that moment of madness at the Eyrie when she found out her Aunt Lysa was dead.  This time it was borne of genuine happiness.

He set her back on her feet, a smile still plastered on his face as tears streamed freely from his eyes.  “Gods, you’re heavy,” he grunted.

She punched him even as she laughed.  “Shut up.”

He held her face in his gloved hands and looked down to her waist.  “You’ve still got it,” he said, his head motioning toward Needle.  “You know what to do with it?”

“Of course,” she replied, remembering a conversation a very different girl had with the man before her.  “You stick ‘em with the pointy end.”

“Aye.  You do,” he said pressing his lips to the top of her head.

Arya wrapped her arms around his middle and held on tightly.  She had been everywhere.  Now she was truly home.

* * *

 

Jon had honestly never cared less that people were watching him.  His little sister was in his arms again, though she was not so little anymore.  At least, he thought ruefully, he didn’t have to pull her down to kiss her.  Tormund would never let him hear the end of it if both of his sisters were taller than him. 

Over the years since he left for The Wall and the Starks had met with nothing but trouble, he had seen his siblings’ faces in his nightmares.  He felt as though he had failed them by holding to his oath of the Night’s Watch.  But Arya was here, and he swore he would never fail her, or Sansa, or Bran again.

“Oof,” he heard Daenerys say from behind them.  He turned to see Ghost nuzzling her between her legs.  “You take after your master, I see.”

Jon choked on the breath he was taking.  He glanced down at his sister who was looking up at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes.  He cursed inwardly as Arya let go of him and walked closer to the woman crouched in front of Ghost.

"So, you're Daenerys Targaryen," Arya said.

Daenerys looked up at her and stood back to her feet. "I am," she replied simply.

Arya arched her eyebrows and said, "I thought you'd be taller."

Jon winced inwardly. A glance at Daenerys released the sudden tension in his belly. She was smiling at his sister. 

"I could say the same of you, Lady Arya."

Jon wasn't sure where to look for a few moments as his eyes darted between the two smirking young women. Finally Arya's eyebrows arched upward and she made a noise that sounded like approval.

"I am no lady," Arya said, resting a hand on Needle's hilt. She looked back to her brother and continued, "Though I'm afraid the Lady of Winterfell has been fuming all afternoon, and might be ready to murder you, Your Grace."


	2. Chapter 2

 

            Sansa paced her solar as her supper grew cold on the table.  She had questioned Gendry about the expedition beyond the wall after she read Ser Davos’ letter.  She had kept her composure as he related the tale, but inwardly she was cursing her brother’s foolhardy excursion.  His decision to go to Dragonstone was idiotic enough, but to then go beyond the wall on a suicide mission.  It was only thanks to Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons that he was still alive at all it seemed.  It clarified Jon’s reasons for bending the knee to the Dragon Queen, but it did not assuage Sansa’s frustrations and anger.  The Northern lords were prickly enough.  Would they really follow a king who acted so recklessly?

            “My lady?” a maid said as she entered the room.  “The king has returned with a small party.”

            Sansa rolled her eyes before she could stop herself.  Of course Jon had arrived without sending details of his arrival.  This was why men needed women.

            “Make sure the rooms for…the _queen_ are prepared, and summon my brother and Master Tarly.  Jon will want to see them.”

            She made her way from her rooms to the Great Hall.  The lamps were just being lit as several cloaked figures made their way in following behind Arya.  Ghost followed Jon and Daenerys Targaryen’s silver hair gave away her identity immediately.  A dark-skinned woman with bushy hair followed the queen along with an older man whose appearance pricked at the very back of Sansa’s memory.  Two men who fit the description of Dothraki screamers as well as Jon’s guards followed.  Lady Brienne was the last in.

            Sansa’s eyes fell on the blood staining the floor.  They hadn’t been able to clean it before it seemed to irrevocably seep into the stones.  One of the maids told her only time could wash it away.  She wasn’t particularly worried about the Dragon Queen’s opinion.  Surely a woman who allied herself with Dothraki wouldn’t look askance at executing a man who deserved.  She worried about Jon.  Not that they executed Baelish—Jon probably had a desire to do so himself—but he would likely not care to hear that his baby sister had performed the execution herself.  She decided to plant herself above the stain and hope her skirts obscured most of it.

            She fixed her gaze on Jon.  The proper smile she should have given him doesn’t come and instead she plastered on a mask of indifference. “I should probably congratulate you on being the first King in the North to go south and return alive. _Twice._ ”

            Jon flinched at the harshness in her voice, stopping in front of her as Arya and Brienne took a place standing on either side of his redheaded sister.  His gaze narrowed at her before he took a breath and said, “Sansa, this is Daenerys Targaryen.  Sorry, I don’t have the whole list memorized.”

            The silver-haired queen smiled at their shared joke and said, “It’s quite all right.  It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Stark.”

            Sansa automatically curtsied.  She would not bend the knee until her brother had done so publically.  When she finally met Daenerys’s eyes, however, she saw none of the falseness to which she had become accustomed in King’s Landing.  Her gaze was kind and seemed to ask for nothing in return.

            “I must offer my apologies, Your Grace,” Sansa said, adopting her learned formal tone.  “We were not expecting you so early.  Your rooms are not quite prepared.”

            “Your apologies are unnecessary,” Daenerys assured her.  “We met with bad news on the road and hastened our journey.”

            “Not that it really matters,” Arya interjected, her hands clasped calmly behind her back. “The queen will be sleeping in Jon’s bed anyway.”

            It was as if all the air had been sucked from the room.  The look Jon gave his youngest sister was a mixture of betrayal and anger, and his face flushed with embarrassment.  Sansa glanced at Daenerys who looked away with pursed lips only to look back with her chin up in an air Sansa would have called defiant.

            She looked back at Jon and met his eyes.  In many ways, he was more Ned Stark’s son than any of his true-born sons.  He had no guile about him.  His eyes were honest and open.  Baelish had been right, and that thought made Sansa’s blood boil.

            “You fucking bastard.”

…

            Jon still remembered how it felt when Olly stuck him in the chest.  He hadn’t felt anything quite so painful until Sansa bit out that last word: bastard.  That was what he had been his whole life.  The one stain on Ned Stark’s unimpeachable honor.  He’d worn it as a weight around his neck for his whole life.  Hearing it from his sister’s lips felt worse than the knife he took to the heart.

            “Everyone out.  Now,” he growled, his eyes not breaking from his sister’s icy glare.

            Shuffling feet and clanking metal met his ears as their party and the few servants in the Hall beat a hasty retreat.  Lady Brienne lingered until Arya nodded her ascent to leave.  Only Daenerys remained in place next to him.

            “Go,” he said in a low tone.

            “I’m not leaving you,” she replied in a tone that neared the one she used issuing commands.

            Jon didn’t really believe in any gods anymore, but he was beginning to wonder what he had done to offend them so that he was tied to the three most obstinate women in the world.

            The last door slammed shut and he said, “How could you—”

            “How could _you_?” Sansa cut him off.  “They named you King in the North and you left! You left and you gave the North up to a woman who turned your head!”

            “It’s not that simple,” he said, using every ounce of self-control to keep from matching Sansa’s rising volume.

            “It is,” Sansa argued.  “These same lords named Robb King in the North.  Has no one told you why he was betrayed?”

            “Sansa, please,” he started, his voice choking at his brother’s memory.

            “He fell in _love_ ,” Sansa sneered.  “He married a foreigner, an outsider.  He broke his oath to Walder Frey.”

            “An oath your mother made for him!”

            Jon regretted the words as soon as they left his lips.  He deserved the hard slap Sansa gave him as angry tears poured from her eyes.  When she moved to strike him again, he grabbed her wrists, and she struggled against him.

            “Sansa, please.  Just listen.”

            “No!” she shouted, beating her fists against his chest as he held her.  “Robb broke his oath, and nearly lead the North to ruin.  He opened the door for the Boltons to take our home.  _Our home_.”

            Suddenly Sansa’s ire struck him deep in his bones.  He let go of her and took a step back.  He’d never really thought about it, but his sister’s need to flee her childhood home had its roots at the Red Wedding.  Jon had never been good with words and he could think of nothing to say to ease his sister’s pain.

            Sansa took several breaths and calmed herself considerably and said, “Robb followed his heart, and he lost his head for it.”

            “He didn’t just lose his head.”

            They all turned to look at Arya.  Her hands were clasped behind her back and she had a distant look as though she was far away.  “The Hound was going to sell me to Robb and Mother, but he was too late.  They had sewed Grey Wind’s head to Robb’s body and tied him to a horse.  They paraded him around as they chanted for the King in the North.  I saw.  I saw it all.”

            Jon felt the bile burning his throat.  He’d tortured himself with visions of what had happened to his brother.  None of them were as awful as what Arya had just described.  And she had seen it.  He wanted to reach out to his baby sister, but that was not the person standing before him.  He thought it likely that girl had died at the Red Wedding as well.  That thought made him even sicker.  He desperately wished for something solid to hold onto.

            As if she had read his mind, Daenerys’s hand slipped into his own and held on tightly.  She looked up at him with eyes that held no pity, only understanding.  If anyone could appreciate his loss, it was her.

            “I am not here to conquer the North,” Daenerys said, looking at Sansa, who was swallowing hard and covering her mouth.  “I have seen what lies beyond the Wall.  I only want to help.”

            The anger seemed to have seeped from Sansa’s form as her shoulders slumped slightly and she shook her head.  “Your intentions don’t matter…Your Grace,” she replied quietly and deliberately before looking back to her brother.  “The North remembers.  They will remember Robb’s foolhardy, reckless, and selfish decisions as well as they remember that her father burned our grandfather and our uncle alive; as well as they remember that her brother kidnapped and _raped_ our aunt.”

            “That’s not true.”

            They all turned to the doorway from whence the voice had come.  Jon’s breath caught in his throat.  Little, broken Bran was no longer a boy.  In his face, he looked very much like Jon’s earliest memories of their father.  Gone was the curious lad who climbed everything and saw everything and new every word of Old Nan’s most frightening stories.  An old man lived behind Bran’s eyes now. 

            Behind Bran’s chair was the cherubic figure of Sam Tarly.  His smile was strained as he raised a hand and cheerfully said, “Hello.”

            A moment of madness overtook him, and Jon barked a laugh.  They all stared at him, and he had to take a deep breath before saying, “I’m sorry, this is all absurd.  I just…didn’t expect to see you, Sam.”

            “Well, I didn’t expect to be here.  Not really,” Sam replied, pushing Bran’s chair into the room.  “I’m Samwell Tarly, Your Grace.  I’ve met your friend, Ser Jorah.”

            Daenerys blinked at the sudden introduction and swallowed hard, an implacable mask on her face.  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Master Tarly.

            Jon bent down to embrace his little brother.  Bran’s response was cold and perfunctory.  The bright boy he knew was certainly gone.  “The last time I saw you, you hadn’t even woken from your fall.”

            “Mother was so terrible to you that day,” Bran replied matter-of-factly.  “You lied to Robb and said she was very kind, and he pretended that it was true.”

            Jon blinked and stepped back, stunned at how well Bran recalled a memory that was fading in Jon’s own mind.  “How do you—”

            “Bran has visions,” Sansa explained.  “He can see the past.  And he’s a warg. That’s—”

            “Jon knows what that is,” Bran interrupted.

            Jon slowly nodded.  “Aye.  There were wargs among the Free Folk.”

            “You were saying something about our Aunt Lyanna,” Arya reminded them, looking pointedly at Bran with raised eyebrows.

            Bran never met her gaze, but instead fixed his stare on Daenerys.  “You’re not the first dragon to love a wolf.”

            Her lips parted and she took in a sharp breath at Bran’s simple statement.  Bran’s eyes shifted to Jon and he continued, “And you are not the first wolf to love a dragon.”

            Jon’s brow furrowed at his brother’s words.  “Bran, what are you—what are you saying?”

            Bran heaved what sounded like the exasperated sigh of a frustrated maester.  “We are all here in this sad state because our Aunt Lyanna couldn’t be honest about her feelings.  She loved Rhaegar, and he loved her.”

            “It’s true,” Sam added, looking mostly between Jon and Daenerys.  “Gilly pointed it out first, but I found it when I transcribed the High Septon’s private diary that he annulled Rhaegar’s marriage to Elia and immediately married him to Lyanna.  They were truly wed.”

            “He was the crown prince.  He could have forced her into that,” Sansa pointed out.

            “He didn’t,” Bran replied.  “I saw it.  She was willing.  She loved him.  The child she bore him died in her arms moments before she died in our father’s, begging him to keep her husband’s kin safe.  The first rift between Robert Baratheon and our father happened because he refused to participate in a plot to murder you when you were pregnant with your first child.”

            Daenerys looked down at her feet and took in a shaky breath.  Jon reached out and grabbed her hand, hoping to anchor her as she had just done for him.  She smiled back at him gratefully and squeezed his hand hard, as if to reassure herself of his presence.

            “Do you have proof of this marriage?” Sansa asked Sam.

            “I do.  I, um, liberated it from the Citadel.”

            Jon scoffed, fully understanding the meaning of ‘liberated.’

            “It might be enough to convince the Northern lords to forget,” Sansa said, looking at Daenerys, “or at least forgive.”

            There was a long moment of silence as they all stood in a haphazard circle.  Finally, Bran spoke up, “In winter we must protect ourselves.”

            “When the snows fall, and the white winds blow,” Sansa recited.

            “The lone wolf dies,” Arya continued.

            Jon smiled.  “But the pack survives.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sansa sort of loses her cool here in a way she hasn't since the beginning of the season. We saw her frustrated with Jon, but that sort of got put on the back burner in favor of the ridiculous but ultimately satisfying Stark Sisters vs. Little Finger plot.
> 
> As it says in the tags, R+L does not = J. However, I didn't want to deviate from the canon completely and still give Sam a purpose for being there.
> 
> Next chapter: Everyone needs a Sam.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing fanfiction since I was about 11. I didn't know what it was called then. I just wanted a version of Babylon 5 where Marcus Cole didn't die, and since that wasn't forthcoming, I decided to write it myself. Writing fanfiction is in many ways a self-serving exercise. It's making what you, the writer, wants to see. The beauty of sharing fanfiction, however, is that it can become a collaborative exercise, while still not losing the author's intent entirely. See end notes for more explanation.

            Daenerys lay awake staring at the ceiling, and listening to the crackle of the fireplace.  She turned her head to the empty spot next to her in the bed.  She and Jon hadn’t spent a night apart since that first night sailing to White Harbor.  Their lovemaking had become less frantic, though no less powerful, and Daenerys found she simply enjoyed lying in his embrace.  But she informed him she was very tired after everything that had transpired since their arrival at Winterfell and that she wanted to spend the night alone.

            She knew that the look of hurt that briefly passed Jon’s face wasn’t the result of what she said, but the overtly formal tone she took while saying it.  She felt incapable of anything else at the time, though.  Had she used any emotion in her speech, the feelings swirling within her might have burst forth.

            Bran’s revelations about her brother had been startling on their own.  For the longest time, Daenerys had been trying to marry the multiple versions of Rhaegar of which she’d been told.  Viserys told her of a great killer, resplendent in his black and red armor, a true vision of fire and blood.  Ser Barristan told her of a kind minstrel who loved people and hated killing.  The history of Westeros told her yet another story of a man who misused his own wife and taken a woman who was promised to another man.  She still wasn’t sure which version of Rhaegar was true, but she was relieved to know he had only the best intentions toward Lyanna Stark.

            It wasn’t the ghosts of the distant past that made it impossible for her to take Jon Snow to her bed.  It wasn’t something her brother or her father had done.  It was something she had done only weeks earlier.  The first tendrils of guilt creeped up her spine when she heard the name Samwell Tarly.  Then she saw the way Jon smiled at him and listened to him and later embraced him.  This smiling, bookish, overweight man was like a brother to the man she loved—Bran wasn’t mistaken about that—and Daenerys had burned that man’s family alive.

            She suddenly understood Tyrion’s pleas to save the Tarlys from Drogon’s fire.  She wasn’t on foreign soil now.  The people she had to punish or correct belonged to someone.  They were loved by someone, possibly even someone that she herself loved.

            Despite the chill of the castle, she felt impossibly warm under the furs of the bed and threw them off.  She pulled on her soft boots and covered her nightclothes with her discarded woolen coat.  She couldn’t stay stifled in the room any longer.  She informed her Dothraki guards to stay behind as she walked the halls of the castle.  Winterfell was so different from Dragonstone or the Essosi palaces she had known.  Nothing about it was meant to intimidate or inspire.  It was designed to protect and to hold.  It was a home.  Daenerys ached to know that she had never truly had one.

She continued to pace the nearly silent stone corridors.  She eventually found herself in the Great Hall, the torches having nearly burnt down at the late hour.  Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the plump figure pacing back and forth before the fireplace.  Samwell Tarly held a small boy in his arms. The child whimpered and cried quietly, his golden head bouncing on Sam’s shoulder restlessly.

            “Oh, hello,” Sam said in a cheery manner Daenerys was quickly coming to believe was usual for him.  “I mean, hello, Your Grace.  Did you need some help?”

            “No, no, don’t trouble yourself on my account,” she replied, shaking her hands as she stepped closer to him.  “Is he all right?”

            “Oh, I think he will be,” Sam replied, bouncing the boy slightly.  “He was born in the North, beyond the wall actually.  But he’s been in warmer climes of late, and has had trouble readjusting.  He’ll be fine in time.”

            She gave him what she hoped was a kind smile; she meant it kindly.  “The boy favors you,” she told him.

            “Oh, well, thank you, but…he’s not mine by blood, you see,” Sam explained, stroking the boy’s back.  “In all the ways that matter, though, he is mine.  Not that I have anything to give him.  My father made me give up my birthright when he made me join the Night’s Watch.”

            She choked on her own breath at the mention of the elder Tarly.  Sam looked at her, worry evident on his face.  “Your Grace, are you all right?”

            Her eyes filled with unshed tears.  She cursed the recent events that pushed her to be so uncontrollably emotional in front of a near-stranger.  “I am quite all right, I assure you.  But I must…I must ask for your forgiveness, Samwell Tarly.”

            Sam cocked his head to one side and laughed uncomfortably.  “I don’t understand, Your Grace.”

            She took in a shaking breath.  “My forces met with the Lannister armies at the Blackwater Rush as they returned from The Reach.  When the battle was over, I gave the surviving men the opportunity to bend the knee.  One officer refused: Randyll Tarly.”

            Sam’s mouth formed a small ‘o’ as he held the boy more tightly to his chest.

            Daenerys steeled herself and continued, “His son, your brother, Dickon refused as well.  And I…and I had Drogon burn them where they stood.”

            Several slow breaths passed her lips before she met his gaze.  The look on Sam’s face surprised her: it was more contemplative than angry.

            “Your Grace, I wonder...why are you apologizing to me?”

            Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.  “They were your family.  They—”

            “My brother and I, though he was kind enough, were not very close,” Sam interrupted.  “And my father didn’t just tell me to take the black, he threatened to murder me if I didn’t.  I don’t hurt for myself at their loss, but for my mother and sister.  You’re not the first monarch to burn your enemies alive.  You’re not even the first one I’ve met.  So, I have to ask you again: why are you apologizing to me?”

            A tear escaped from her eyes and rolled down her face.  She tried to blink the rest away, but that only made them spill further from her eyes.  “My father burned Jon’s grandfather and uncle alive,” she told him.  “I asked him the day we met not to judge a daughter by the sins of her father.  But he can judge me by my own sins.  Especially when they can hurt the people that he cares about.  How could he forgive me?  How could you?”

            Daenerys pressed her lips together and stared into the flames of the fireplace before looking back into Sam’s kind and open eyes.

            “Your Grace,” he began gently, “for my part, there is nothing to forgive.  Although I will remind you that you’re in the North now, and the North does have quite a long memory.  Probably best to hold off burning anyone alive for a while.”

            She wanted to laugh, but only managed a smile as she brushed the tears from her cheeks.  “I only wish to burn the dead,” she told him solemnly.

            Sam nodded.  “Please do, Your Grace.”

            Daenerys walked around Sam to see the small boy finally sleeping peacefully on his father’s shoulder.  She brushed his sweat-soaked locks from his forehead and asked, “What’s his name?”

            Sam seemed to blush as he replied, “Well, Gilly didn’t know many men’s names because of, well, reasons I shouldn’t go into, and since I was about the only man she actually knew, she gave him my name.”

            Daenerys had known many men in her life.  She thought she had met one of the most humble when Jon Snow walked into her thrown room and barely remembered to introduce himself as King in the North.  Now she saw true humility before her in the form of a man who took another man’s child to his heart.

            “I am certain she had the best of reasons for naming her child after you,” she said, brushing the hair from the child’s forehead.  “Goodnight, Samwell Tarly.”

…

            Jon looked up at his father’s face, though he couldn’t say he would have known the likeness had he not known who it was _supposed_ to be.  He thought about Ned Stark’s childhood.  He had been the second son, not intended to be the Warden of the North.  Jon was less than a second son.  He was a bastard, and yet they called him _King_ in the North.  Would his father have understood Jon’s moments of doubt?  He’d like to believe he could.  He would also like to believe his father had never lied to him.  He suddenly found himself doubting that as well.

            “Jon?”

            He looked up and saw Sam walking toward him with a torch in one hand.  “What are you doing down here?”

            “Not sure,” he replied honestly, wrapping his cloak more tightly around himself.  “Couldn’t sleep.  Figured no one would bother me down here.”

            “Strange place to come and think,” Sam commented before placing his torch on the wall and sitting down next to Jon on the hardened earth.  “Although for you it sort of makes sense.”

            Jon rolled his eyes.  “I’ve been a right misery my whole life,” he said, sighing.  “How is Little Sam?” he asked, remembering how his friend quickly excused himself to take care of the ailing toddler.

            “His fever broke and he’s sleeping now.  Gilly too.  She’s exhausted.  I’m exhausted too, for that matter.”

            “So, why are you down here talking to me?”

            Sam looked up at him, his lips pressed together in a thin line.  “I wanted to say that I am so very sorry I wasn’t there when the Brothers betrayed you.”

            Jon shook his head furiously and grabbed the other man’s shoulder, forcing him to meet his gaze.  “I sent you away, and you followed my orders.  They would have killed you first, you know they would have, probably Gilly and Little Sam too.  I’m glad you weren’t there, but I’m glad you’re here now.”

            Sam pulled Jon into a tight embrace that surprised the smaller man with its forcefulness.  He gratefully patted his friend on the back and let go.  Even in the dim light of the crypt, he could see the bags and shadows under the man’s eyes.

            “Sam, you need to rest.”

            “I don’t think I can,” Sam replied, looking at the shadow Lyanna’s statue cast against the floor.  “Did you know she burned my father and brother alive?”

            Jon felt as though he’d been drenched in ice water.  He knew she executed men against Tyrion’s wishes, but he hadn’t known their names.  He hadn’t asked because a part of him didn’t want to know, and he wished he was still in ignorance.

            “Sam, I didn’t know.  I—”

            “Don’t-don’t trouble yourself,” Sam interrupted.  “ _She’s_ the one who told me.  She, well, she apologized.”

            Jon blinked.  “What?”

            “She apologized,” Sam repeated.  “She asked for my forgiveness for burning my father and brother.  I told her what sort of man my father was.  I feel for my mother and sister, but I don’t feel their loss exactly.  I imagine dragon fire is a bit more efficient than burning people at the stake, anyway.”

            Jon squeezed his eyes shut tightly.  His thoughts and feelings had been chewed and spat back at him so much in the last few hours, he wished he could feel nothing at all.

            “Why-why would she apologize?  She’s the queen.  It’s not really in her nature.”

            Sam squinted back at him.  “You are very thick sometimes.”

            _You know nothing, Jon Snow_ , a voice recited in his head.  “Say what you mean, Sam.”

            “She wasn’t apologizing because she regretted the action itself.  She was apologizing because her actions could hurt someone _you_ cared about.  She loves you.  She loves you enough to question her own actions as a queen.”

            Jon looked back at his father’s unfamiliar face and rested his head against the cold stone wall.  “I don’t deserve that.”

            “None of us _deserve_ anything, really,” Sam replied.  “That’s why we have to appreciate what we have.”

            Jon smiled at his friend.  “Thank you, Sam.”

            They walked out of the crypt together in companionable silence and went their separate ways when they reached the inside of the keep.  The few guards on duty barely acknowledged him—most were simply trying to stay awake—but he could have sworn the last one he passed smirked at him mischievously.            He understood why when he spied her silver hair as he entered his chambers.  She was wearing a heavy nightdress and her coat was laid at the end of his bed.  She pulled the furs up with her as she sat up.

            “I couldn’t sleep without you,” she confessed.

            Jon smiled softly as he took off his cloak and toed out of his boots.  “Nor I you,” he replied, drawing him to her as he slipped between the covers.

…

            Sam knocked as he opened the door, not waiting for a reply.  “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”

            Bran Stark didn’t even look up.  “I see the past, not the future.”

            “Well, based on the _past_ , do you really think we’re doing the right thing?  Secrets get people killed.”

            Bran’s eyes turned sharply to the man who was now standing next to him.  “Secrets also keep people alive.  And we will keep ours for a while longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might have guessed since I posted three chapters in about 36 hours, most of this was written before I even started posting. I only added one scene in response to the response in the last chapter.  
> One of the more unique things about ASoIaF is the multiple, limited, third-person points of view. What this creates, however, is something called perspective bias. Everyone is only seeing the truth as they see it. And that's why my tags, which were totally there from the beginning guys, are remaining the same.  
> Thanks for sticking with me!


	4. Chapter 4

            The trembling of the body folded into his stirred him from his sleep.  He was glad of it, honestly.  His dreams had been filled with images of Robb’s betrayal.  The image Arya’s words had painted was burned into his skull.  It still made him sick to think of his brother’s body defiled in such a way.

The fire had begun to die and the first rays of sun had yet to appear on the horizon.  Jon gently extricated himself from Daenerys’s embrace, and rose to tend the fire.  When it had crackled back to life, he stood for a moment before the flames, warming his chilled bones.  He looked back to find Daenerys sitting up in his bed, drawing the furs closer to her.

            Jon chuckled.  “You’ll never get used to the cold like that,” he told her, sliding into the bed next to her.

            She glared at him, and Jon found it difficult not to laugh at her appearance.  Her face bore the marks of sleep, and her silver hair had been mussed out of its braids.  The look she was giving him had probably quelled whole armies, but in her current state, he just found it funny.

            “Stop laughing.”

            “I’m not laughing,” he said as his resolve broke and his chest began to shake.

            She shook her head and looked away from him.  As she sat back against the pillows, her face remained turned toward the darkened window. 

A sudden guilt flooded Jon and he laced his fingers through her loosened braids and said, “Dany, I’m sorry.  I was—”

“Don’t,” she cut him off, turning her head back to meet his gaze.  “I’m not angry at you.”

To emphasize her point, she kissed the palm of the hand cupping her face as she wrapped her small fingers around his wrist.  She took his free hand and laced her fingers through his.  They sat like that for many moments: simply connected.  Jon held his peace even though he was desperate to know what was happening in her mind.

“I need to tell you something,” she said in a quavering voice.

“You don’t have to,” he replied, running his thumb along her cheek.  “Sam told me what you said to him.”

She sighed and slowly nodded, taking his hand from her face and joining it with her own on her lap.  She stared at their joined hands as the silence grew and became nearly unbearable.

“Dany, what—”

“Sometimes I fear I am not a good person,” she cut him off, finally looking up to meet his eyes.

Jon felt his chest tighten.  “How could you possibly think that?”

“Fire and blood,” she replied, almost wistfully.  “They’re not just my family’s words, it’s my first reaction.  When Lord Tarly refused to bend the knee, I didn’t hesitate to set him alight.  And even that wasn’t my first instinct.”

Jon remembered that day on the beach.  He understood in some small part in that moment how a Dothraki horde had come to follow a foreign queen.  She was fearsome, and he had been more than a little hesitant to offer his counsel.  But he had, and she had taken it.  He sucked in a deep breath.

“I need you,” she said, cutting off his reply.

“You have me,” he assured her, his voice gruff as held her face between his hands.

Her smile was sweet as tears wet her cheeks.  “You don’t understand.  A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing.  Had I not surrounded myself with such _good_ people, I fear I might have been a truly terrible thing.”

“You have done so much good.  Your people follow you because they chose you.  An evil person doesn’t bother to surround themselves with good.  An evil person doesn’t bother to listen.  An evil person doesn’t bother to know themselves so well as to know they need good counsel,” Jon told her fiercely. 

She smiled and nodded, her face still in his hands.  “Tyrion and Missandei and even Jorah before them; they all have my ear.  But you, Jon Snow, you have my heart.”

Jon could only stare.  He wasn’t even sure he was remembering to breathe.

“I don’t need another counselor,” she continued.  “I need you, as you are: a king your people chose.”

“Dany, what are you saying?” he asked as his breath returned to him.

“I don’t want you to bend the knee to me, Jon.  I want you by my side as the king that you are, for this war, and all the wars to come.”

Jon’s mind raced.  Part of him understood the weight of her words.  The other part dared not to hope in his own meager interpretation.  But his body simply needed her and he pulled her close, pressing his lips to hers and tangling his fingers in her hair.

…

_“You should have told them the truth.”_

_Bran turned and walked toward the man in the tree.  He barely had to look up to meet the old man’s tired eyes.  “I don’t have to listen to you anymore,” he argued._

_“But I am you, Brandon.”_

_Bran fiercely shook his head and turned away.  He looked to the spot in the cave where he always found Hodor waiting.  Willas, he reminded himself.  Willas was the man’s name before he had the misfortune of carrying a cripple across the snow.  Meera’s words came back to him, then.  They haunted him as much as the hurt on her face haunted him._

_“They died so that you could return with what you know,” the old man told him._

_“They died so that you could get out of that tree!” Bran replied viciously.  “I know everything now, but knowing everything is useless if you don’t have heart.  I still remember how to feel, and I know how they will feel.”_

_“Lies have a price, Brandon.”_

_“So does the truth, and I am not willing to pay it.  Not yet.”_

…

He gasped as he awoke.  He was still sitting in his chair before the fire.  He did not know the last time he had dreamt.  He once told Osha he didn’t dream. He wasn’t even sure what he had just experienced was a dream, but he was sure it was not a memory.  In the part of him that could still feel, the part of him that was still wholly Bran Stark, he was certain of the answer he had given Sam Tarly.  They were doing the right thing.

…

Daenerys finally felt warm, even as he pulled away from her, naked and spent.  She lost count of the number of times he had called her Dany.  She had only corrected him the once on the way back from Eastwatch.  It was the name Viserys gave her to remind her she was small, to remind her that he was the heir and not her.  Jon used it because he knew her.  Jon used it because he loved her.

His fingers were splayed across her belly, just beneath her breast.  She ran her own fingers across his knuckles, attempting to memorize every wrinkle and scar.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.

She turned her head to face him.  His unruly curls, having been loosed from their binds would have made him look younger, save for the pain of years in his eyes. 

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” she told him.

“Tyrion and the others will be here by midday, the Unsullied and Dothraki by dusk, and the Northern lords will be assembled tomorrow,” he told her.  “What are we going to tell them?”

She didn’t want to answer his question.  She didn’t have a particular answer.  “I’m sure Tyrion will have an interesting explanation to share,” she said.

“Aye, I’m sure he will at that.”

“But I think I much prefer your method.”

His brow furrowed with an unasked question.

“Telling the truth,” Daenerys explained.

Jon scoffed.  “As I recall, you didn’t much appreciate it the last time I told the truth.”

“Are your lords Cersei Lannister?” she asked goadingly.

Jon fixed her with a hard stare.  “They are not,” he replied firmly.  “But Sansa was not entirely wrong.  The North remembers.  They’ve been betrayed by the South, betrayed by their own.  They’re not going to like it, not at first, anyway.  Their survival is more important than their pride, but they don’t truly know what they’re facing yet, and they don’t know who’s come save them.”

“They know you.  Shouldn’t that be enough?”

“I hope so.”

She sighed at the doubt she saw living in his eyes.  She pulled his face to hers.  She buried her fingers in his hair as she kissed him.  His hands went to either side of her body as he crawled over her and devoured her lips with his own.

The door opened noisily and a female yelp soon followed. 

“Oh, Jon, I’m so sorry,” a brown-haired woman carrying a tray of food apologized, looking away.

Jon broke away from her as if he’d been struck.  Daenerys pulled furs to her chest to cover herself, suddenly cold without him.

“Gilly, what—”

“I was bringing breakfast.  I just…”

The words died in the woman’s throat as she stared at Jon’s scarred chest.  Daenerys felt a pang of something new as she saw the look passing between the woman and Jon.  Was it jealousy?

“I’m so sorry, Jon,” she repeated, starting to turn toward the door.  She then apparently remembered the tray and set it on the table before the fire.  She was almost through the door when she turned back and said, “I think your people are looking for you, milady.”

Jon groaned and covered his face with his hands as soon as the door shut behind her.  He scrubbed his hands through his hair and threw off the covers before finding his discarded breeches on the floor.

“Who was she?” Daenerys asked as he dressed.  “She called you Jon.”

She looked away from him as he turned back toward her with a cocked eyebrow.  She almost didn’t want to hear his response.

            “That was Gilly,” he told her.  “ _Sam’s_ Gilly.  She’s known me since I was a steward in the Night’s Watch.  I’ve known her since before her son was born.  She can call me whatever she likes.”

            “Oh,” Daenerys replied, hoping her voice didn’t betray her relief.  She could still feel her eyes on her as she found her nightdress on the floor and pulled it over her head.  “I should probably go.  You don’t want agitated Dothraki on your hands.”

            “Aye, that’s true,” Jon replied, chuckling.

            She wrapped her coat about herself and kissed him softly on the lips.  “We will speak later, my king.”

            His breath caught in her throat.  “We will, my queen.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters. One Day.

            Sansa stood in front of the door and steeled herself.  She had had little sleep thinking about the things she said to Jon.  So she knocked and held her breath for the reply.

            “Come in,” Jon’s voice replied.

            She opened the door and found him fully dressed in his leathers, looking over a map on the table in front of the fire, the tray that had once contained his breakfast set aside on a chair.  He looked up as she closed the door behind her. 

            “I’m sorry,” she said before he could speak.  “I should never have called you a bastard.  I was angry and I just…I just wanted to hurt you.  I’m so sorry, Jon.”

            His face softened and he shook his head.  “Sansa, there’s no-”

            “Don’t say it,” she cut him off.  “I know it’s your way.  I know it was father’s way, but don’t say there’s nothing to forgive when there obviously is.  Hold a bloody grudge occasionally.”

            Jon scoffed at that.  “I’m not holding a grudge against my own sister,” he told her.  “And I do forgive you.  I understand why you were so angry.  I’m not blind.  I understand what it may look like on the surface, but…she saved my life.”

            “I know,” Sansa replied with a sigh.  “Ser Davos sent a letter with the smith, Gendry.  I suppose he realized you wouldn’t be forthcoming with the details of your own…”

            “My own what?”

            “I’m trying to decide if stupidity or bravery is the better description.”

            Jon actually smiled as he looked back to the map and rolled it up.  “It was stupid, if I’m honest.  And ultimately entirely useless.  Daenerys lost one of her dragons saving our lives.  Even after a few missteps—mostly my fault—we convinced Cersei Lannister to help us.  But that was a lie.”

            “How do you know?”

            “Lady Brienne met Ser Jaime on the road.  He told her that Cersei not only lied about helping, but she’s ferrying an army of mercenaries to Westeros.  Everything we did and lost beyond the Wall was useless.”

            She could see her brother’s tightly bound control slipping as he pressed his fists into the top of the table.  “Ser Davos wasn’t entirely clear on how you made it back from beyond the Wall,” she said, leaving the question unspoken.

            Jon’s shoulders slumped visibly as he stared into the flickering fire.  “It was Uncle Benjen,” he said with a deep sigh.

            “Uncle Benjen?  I thought he was lost years ago,” Sansa said, confusion creasing her brow.

            “He was,” Jon replied.  “I don’t know where he came from, or how he found me.  He just put me on the horse and told me to go.  He went down fighting them.”

            Sansa rushed forward and wrapped her arms around her brother’s neck.  Jon seemed startled by the sudden contact, but returned the embrace and held her close.

            “I’m so sorry,” she told him, tears forming in her forming in her own eyes.  “I know how much he meant to you.”

            “Aye.  Proves one thing, though,” he said, letting go enough to look into her eyes, “Starks are very hard to kill.”

            Sansa smiled at the kiss he placed on her cheek.  “So it would seem,” she agreed.

            Her eyes fell on the cloak she had made him.  She picked it up from the bench where it lay and said, “There are some things you need to know, Jon, and I feel I need to show them to you.”

            A look of confusion passed Jon’s face, but he took the cloak from her and wrapped it about himself as he followed her from the room.  Sansa took a deep breath as she led her brother through the corridors of their home.  He was the honorable Ned Stark’s son.  She was less than certain how he would feel about what they had done in his absence, although she had no worries that Jon would appreciate the end result.

            “Sansa, why was Gilly delivering my breakfast this morning?” Jon asked suddenly.

            “Ah,” she started, recalling a bit of dramatics from earlier in the day.  “She sort of put herself to work.  I told her not to worry; that she and Samwell were guests, but she insisted.  I don’t think she likes being idle.  She was actually quite upset this morning.”

            “Oh, um, well, I wasn’t actually alone this morning.”

            Sansa turned and smiled at her brother’s suddenly flustered and reddened appearance.  “Jon, she has a _child_.  She wasn’t disturbed at the sight of a naked woman in your bed, even if that woman is a queen.”

            “I’d really rather not discuss this with my _sister_ ,” Jon insisted.

            Sansa rolled her eyes.  She thought she had probably heard more frank discussion of what goes on between lovers during her time in King’s Landing than Jon had gotten in his time on the Wall, but that wouldn’t matter to him.  She supposed all girls forever remained little sisters in their brothers’ eyes.  She almost hated that she would have to dispel him of such notions.

            “It was your scars that upset her,” she informed him before carrying on down the corridor.

            “My scars?  Why?” Jon asked.

            “The Watch betrayed you because you let Wildlings beyond the Wall to escape certain death,” she reminded him.  “Wildlings like Gilly.”

            “I didn’t let her beyond the Wall.  Sam did that.”

            “But you helped protect her, from what I hear.  You showed her kindness, and they killed you for it.  Seeing the evidence of that was painful for her.”

            “How do you know all of this?” Jon asked after a silence lingered.

            “I’m the Lady of Winterfell.  It’s my job to know what goes on within my walls.”

            “And who taught you to do that?”

            “Mother, mostly, and Tyrion to some extent, and…Littlefinger,” she added reluctantly.

            She heard Jon swallow a sound like a growl as he followed her into the Great Hall.

            “Sansa, why are you bringing me here?”

            She stood alongside the stain of Baelish’s blood and said, “Did you not see this last night?”

            “It was dark and I was…distracted,” he told her, his frustration becoming audible.  “What is this?”

            “It’s Petyr Baelish’s blood,” she admitted.

            A shadow crossed Jon’s face.  “Did he touch you?” he asked through gritted teeth.

            Sansa shook her head.  “Not like that.  But he did try to come between Arya and me almost as soon as she arrived.  It’s what he does, it was he’s always done.  Bran confirmed it, and more.”  She took a fortifying breath and continued, “He gifted the Valyrian steel dagger the assassin tried to use after Bran’s fall _to_ Bran.  The question of who owned that dagger started everything: all the enmity between the Lannisters and Starks, our brother murdered and defiled, my mother tossed into a river, thousands dead.  And it all went back to Littlefinger.  He held a knife to our father’s throat as he betrayed him.”

            She watched as Jon’s jaw quavered and his fists clenched and unclenched almost uncontrollably.  “You executed him in our hall?” he asked finally, his voice a low rumble.

            “He didn’t deserve a beheading or a hanging,” she replied.  “So, Arya cut his throat.”

            She cautiously looked up into Jon’s widening eyes.

            “You had Arya do _this_?” he spat at her, motioning to the stain on the floor.

            “She’s quite good at slitting throats,” Sansa told him, pressing her lips into a thin line as Jon’s face twisted in confusion and anger.  “There’s something else you need to see.”

…

            Jon was finding it difficult to follow his sister as she led him up the battlements that overlooked the courtyard.  He certainly wasn’t angry that Littlefinger was no longer around to haunt his sister’s shadow.  He thought it overly dramatic that he had been executed in the middle of the hall.  He could not even begin to comprehend why Arya had executed the sentence.

            “There,” Sansa said finally, stopping in the place where he had so often found his father and Lady Stark watching them train.

            He looked down to find his sister dueling Brienne of Tarth.  He would have considered the match entirely unfair had he not had the advantage of sight.  Arya was quick, agile, and graceful.  Even though she fought with Needle and Brienne fought with a Valyrian steel broadsword, there was no question the two women were evenly matched.  His breath caught in his throat as Brienne landed a heavy fist on Arya’s chest, sending her reeling.  But Arya recovered quickly, a feral look in her eyes.  Quick flashes and clangs of steel rattled about until both women held the points of their swords to one another’s throats.  They laughed breathlessly and bowed to one another before sheathing their blades.

            Arya turned and caught his eye.  He forced a smile and a wave at her, and she bowed dramatically in response.  When Arya’s back was turned, he quietly said, “How does she know how to do that?”

            “She trained to be a Faceless Man in Braavos.”

            “I don’t know what that means,” Jon told Sansa sharply.

            “I don’t entirely know either, but I have seen her faces,” Sansa told him.  “She can become anyone, hide in plain sight.”

            “And she can fight like that,” Jon added quietly.

            “Yes,” Sansa replied simply.

            Jon breathed the cold air in deeply.  The years had changed all of his siblings. Sansa was no longer the sneering, spoiled sister he had once known.  Bran was no longer the bright and curious boy climbing towers and trees and forgetting to put away his bow after practice.  Arya had not seemed so different until he saw the look in her eyes after she had been knocked down.  She had a deep killer instinct that wasn’t a part of the little girl who had wanted to be a knight.

            The sight of Gendry in the yard shook Jon from his reverie.  The smith smiled as he handed a dragonglass dagger to Arya.  She took it with an equally bright smile and flipped it first in her left and then in her right hand.  Her smile only grew as Gendry motioned for her to keep it.

            Sansa’s sudden laughter startled Jon and he suddenly realized how tightly he held to the railing.  “What?” he bit at his sister, annoyed.

            “It’s just you,” she told him with a smile.  “You were so brooding over the idea of Arya possibly being an assassin, and then your face when you saw her talking to a boy.”

            “He’s not a boy.  He’s a grown man.”

            That comment only made Sansa smile more brightly.  “A grown man who knows her.  They traveled together on the King’s Road after Father was killed.  A man of the Night’s Watch was trying to smuggle Arya back to Winterfell.  It didn’t end well, obviously, but she and Gendry traveled together a bit longer.  That was all the story I managed to get from either of them.”

            Jon shook his head as he looked back toward his little sister and the smith.  Gendry’s hearty laugh carried back to them and Jon gripped the railing a little tighter.

            “You know,” Sansa began after a long pause, “of all of us, I think you’ve changed the least.”

            He blinked up at her in surprise.  “I’ve changed.”

            Sansa shook her head as she smiled.  “You’ve changed your mind, your perspective, as you’ve learned things, but who you are has never changed.  You were always good and honorable.  And time, and death, and dragon queens haven’t changed that about you.  I’m grateful you’re our brother.”

            Jon pressed a kiss to her forehead and replied with the only words that came to mind: “I love you, too.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

Jon was becoming utterly convinced Daenerys possessed some sort of magic.  She was clearly very beautiful, explaining how so many men had fallen into her company over the years.  Jon had seen the way Ser Jorah looked at her, and knew there was more than mere friendship on his part at least.  She had inspired fierce loyalty in Tyrion Lannister.  Even Davos had joked about backing Dany.  She had even entranced him in a way he never thought to feel again.  But it was almost too much when he saw Ghost padding along behind her to where the dragons made their nest southeast of Winterfell.

“You shouldn’t be alone, Your Grace,” Jon called after her as she trekked through the mud Drogon and Rhaegal made melting the snow.

“I’m not alone,” she called back with a smirk as she motioned to the direwolf.

“I can see that,” Jon grumbled, catching up to her.  “But Ser Jorah was right.  The North doesn’t know you yet.”

“Nothing happened on the road,” she reminded him as she crossed into the circle that clearly delineated the dragons’ nest.

“ _They_  weren’t so close then,” Jon told her, hanging back slightly.  He wasn’t afraid of the dragons as he admittedly was in the beginning.  He respected them for what they were, and he was still something of an interloper in their space.

“One would think my children would be a deterrent to any ill-conceived violence,” she replied without looking back toward him.

Jon pressed his lips together to keep himself from speaking.  He couldn’t see her face and he knew she was smirking.  He watched for a moment as she ran an ungloved hand along Drogon’s snout.  He shivered involuntarily as the creature looked directly at him and he crossed the threshold into their nest.  Jon removed his glove as he had that day at Dragonstone and reached his hand up toward the black scales.  Drogon shifted his face into Jon’s hand and the warmth from the dragon seemed to seep from his fingertips to his toes.

“He wouldn’t let me do that when he was younger,” Daenerys said suddenly.

“What?” Jon asked, taking his hand away.

“When Drogon was a bit larger than a horse, he wouldn’t let me touch him,” she explained.  “It was difficult when he had so recently been eating from my hands.  And then you come along, and he lets you touch him with no resistance.”

The sharpness of her tone was not lost on him.  “You needn’t be jealous,” he told her.  “I would never take anything that is rightfully yours.”

She looked up and met his gaze.  “Nor I yours,” she said with quiet fierceness, her eyes locked on his.

Jon wasn’t sure how long they stood there.  He wanted to thank her for making her declarations in the cold light of day as well as the warmth of their shared bed.  He wanted to take her bottom lip between his teeth and tangle his fingers in her hair.  But they were exposed even without another soul in sight, so he exercised a careful measure of self-control, and tore his eyes from hers.

“Everyone else will be here soon,” he reminded her.  “What will you tell Tyrion?”

“I don’t much care what Tyrion thinks,” she answered coldly.

“It’s not his fault Cersei went back on her word.”

“Isn’t it?” she asked, turning away from him.  “She’s his sister. He should have known.”

Jon shook his head.  “He can’t see the future.”

“He sees very little of late,” she replied bitterly without looking back at him.

He stepped away from Drogon’s radiating heat and reached out to take Daenerys’s wrist in his hand.  “Dany,” he began gently, “you need him.”

“And why is that?” she asked, sighing deeply.

“For the same reason I need Sansa,” Jon admitted.  “I know what I am; I’m a shield protecting the realms of men.  I can defend, protect, fight, but the day-to-day task of ruling?  I’m no good at it, and Sansa is.  She’s kept the North together and ready the whole time I’ve been gone.”

Daenerys shook her head.  “She called you a bastard to your face.  Are you telling she’s never disagreed or undermined you?”

Jon sighed.  “My sister apologized for her words last night,” he explained, “and, yes, she has openly disagreed with me in court.”

“That is—”

“No,” Jon cut her off, staring back at the flames that lit behind Daenerys’s eyes.  “If Sansa wanted to seize power, she easily could have while I was at Dragonstone, or especially after I sent word that I bent the knee.  I’ll wager she was getting advice to do so, but she didn’t.  We’re family.  We protect one another.”

He watched as Daenerys turned away and stroked Drogon’s neck.  “I don’t really know what that’s like,” she said quietly, “having a human family that will truly protect you.”

Jon reached out and took one of her hands in his.  “I’m sorry for your loneliness,” he told her.  “It makes me realize how selfish I was growing up.”

“How so?” she asked, squeezing his hand.

“I never appreciated my family.  I felt set apart and alone because I was a bastard, but I still had them,” he explained.  “My father never spoke to me differently. Arya was always following me around, Robb was more than my best friend; he was truly my brother, Bran and Rickon watched my every move, even Sansa, though she was often cold to me, was kind from time-to-time.”

“Kind how?”

“She tried to teach me how to talk to girls,” Jon explained, smirking at the memory.  “She told me I should complement their hair.”

Daenerys arched her eyebrows.  “You’ve never complemented my hair.”

“Well…you’re not a girl.”

She punched him playfully and Jon laughed in response, the sound bubbling unfamiliarly in his throat.  She reached up with her ungloved hand and stroked his cheek.

“You have a very nice smile, Jon Snow.  I should like to see it more.”

His resistance crumbled and he moved forward to kiss her.  His heart froze in his chest, however, at what he saw over Daenerys’s shoulder.  Ghost had boldly approached Rhaegal and the dragon had risen halfway to look down upon the direwolf.  Daenerys turned to follow Jon’s gaze and gasped.  Jon started toward the scene, but she held him in place.

“Wait,” she whispered.

Jon watched in horror as the two wild animals stared at one another.  Rheagal finally huffed and Ghost snorted.  The dragon laid his head down and Ghost moved to curl up in the crook of the dragon’s neck.

“Seven fucking hells,” Jon breathed.

“I’ve never seen them behave so to another animal,” Daenerys said, staring.

Jon thought about the things he’d seen beyond the Wall.  Beyond the Wall, not everything made sense, not everything happened as expected.  “Direwolves are creatures of magic, from before the time of the First Men.  They have that in common with dragons, I suppose.”

“Yes, I suppose,” she replied pensively.

He waited as she bid her dragons good-bye and walked in companionable silence toward the keep.

“Dany, what do you know of the Faceless Men?” he said, finally asking the question that had been on his mind since he set out after her.

“They were born of slavery,” she told him.  “They killed their masters and founded the free city of Braavos.  They have some magic of their own that allows them to change their faces.  They’re master assassins.  They were sent to kill me and my brother when I was very young.  It’s probably one of their very few failures.  Why do you ask?”

“Arya,” Jon replied, eyes staring at a meaningless point in the distance.  “She trained as a Faceless Man in Braavos.  Sansa has apparently seen her faces, whatever that means.  I don’t know what to make of my sister being an assassin.”

“She’s not the little girl you left all those years ago,” Daenerys told him gently.  “And, forgive me for saying it, an assassin’s skills could prove useful in the war to come.”

Jon froze.  “No, she doesn’t,” he said, memories of battles beyond the wall flooding back to him.  “A killer is not a fighter.”

She had stopped a few paces ahead of him and turned to look.  “What do you mean?”

“A killer has a target, but in a fight, the goal is just to survive,” Jon said slowly, thinking.  “She doesn’t have the skills she needs.  Not yet.”

“What are you going to do?” Daenerys asked, following after his sudden burst of speed.

“I’ll let you know after I’ve finished.”

“Is this how you make all your plans?”

Jon smiled as he looked back and offered her his hand.  “Yes.  Bother you?”

She returned his smile.  “Not in the slightest.”

* * *

 

“Why a hammer?” Arya asked, nibbling an apple as she sat on a counter watching Gendry work.

“Well, I know how to use one,” Gendry replied, smirking as he banged a hammer, shaping the heated metal between his tongs.

She waited until he placed the metal back into the fire, and said, “As a blacksmith, yes, but how good is a hammer in a fight?”

“I know how to use one,” Gendry repeated, dunking the metal in the water.  “Robert Baratheon fought with a war hammer.”

“He was also a drunk who was gored to death by a boar,” Arya pointed out.  “Not exactly a recommendation.”

“He was also my father.  Apparently,” Gendry said, pounding the metal on the anvil.

Arya blinked in shock as she stared at him.  Gendry’s parentage had never really bothered her.  It didn’t matter.  Suddenly, it seemed to matter quite a lot.  Then she looked at his face.  She could see the resemblance in his eyes.

“How do you know?”

“The Red Woman,” Gendry explained.  “That’s why she wanted me.  I’ve got king’s blood or something.  She have place on your list?”

“Yes,” Arya admitted, scowling.

“What is it?” Gendry asked, having stopped working to look at her.

“You’re not much younger than Jon,” Arya said slowly, calculating the figures in her mind.  “That means Robert Baratheon got your mother pregnant while he was fighting a war over another woman where thousands of people died.  What a fucking cunt.”

Gendry snorted.  “You’re not wrong.”

“Robert Baratheon smashed Rhaegar Targaryen to bits with a war hammer like the one you’re making.  You probably shouldn’t tell Daenerys who your real father was,” she told him.

Gendry’s rolled his eyes.  “What is it about me that makes people think I’m incredibly stupid?”

Arya smirked.  “I’d imagine it’s mostly your face.”

“My face?”

“Hmm,” she murmured slyly.  “Then you start speaking, and everyone just knows you’re a big, dumb bull.”

“Is that right?” Gendry asked, leaning over her.

“It is,” Arya replied, giggling as his lips hovered just above her own.

The door to the smithy banged open and Gendry jumped away from her with speed so surprising, Arya nearly laughed.  She retrieved her forgotten apple from the ground as she stood and saw Jon entering the smithy.  She smiled, genuinely happy to see him without the shadow of their sister or the Dragon Queen.  But Jon’s expression was grim, even by his standards.

“Jon, is everything alright?” she asked.

Jon spared a suspicious look at Gendry as he busied himself near the forge.  “I think so,” Jon told her.  “I just need to speak with you about something.”

She silently nodded her ascent to follow.  She tried to catch Gendry’s eye, but he was resolutely focused on the blade in front of him.  When she caught up with Jon, he had a wooden practice sword in one hand and tossed another to her.  Although she was surprised, she caught it easily.

“What’s this?” she asked, an eyebrow arched upward.

Jon was not amused.  His face remained dour and serious.  “Sansa told me about Littlefinger,” he said quietly.

Arya squared her shoulders.  “His sentence had been passed.  I was justified.”

“You slit his throat, Arya,” he replied quietly.  “You’re a killer.  I don’t know what the Faceless Men have taught you, but we don’t need a killer for what’s to come.”

Arya’s jaw set.  “Then why have you handed me this?” she asked, gripping the practice sword tightly.

“Because a killer doesn’t have to just be a killer,” Jon said calmly, turning and leading her to the courtyard where a group of armored men were waiting.  “You’ve been alone a long time, I think.  But you can’t fight that way.  You have to protect the person next to you, and trust that they will do the same for you.”

Arya blinked at the sudden softness in Jon’s face.  “Are you going to stand next to me?”

“Of course I am,” Jon replied with a small smile. “Come on.”

* * *

Sansa hid herself as best she could behind a pillar overlooking the courtyard.  It was the same spot she and Jon had stood earlier, but she did not so much want to be seen as she had in the morning.  Jon had brought Arya into a knot of some of the best Stark men.  He was teaching her how to guard her flank and work with another person.  Considering what Sansa had shared with Jon about their sister, she supposed he was reacting rather well.  Arya was doing well under Jon’s tutelage, which was not at all surprising.

“Lady Stark.”

She looked up to see Daenerys approaching with just the dark woman Sansa learned was called Missandei.  She curtsied politely and said, “Your Grace.”

Daenerys smiled, though Sansa was sure it was not out of happiness or even amusement.  “You are very formal, Lady Stark,” she commented.

“For a lady from the wild north I suppose you mean,” Sansa replied, returning Daenerys’s demure smile.

“This country is not so wild as I had imagined,” Daenerys said, “although it is just as cold.”

“May I ask what gave life to your imaginings, Your Grace?”

“What I knew of Westeros from my brother, what meager details Ser Jorah shared about his homeland, and your brother’s behavior the first time we met,” Daenerys explained, smiling genuinely.

Sansa arched an eyebrow.  “Jon proved wild upon your first meeting?” she asked in disbelief.

“Not wild on the first meeting, no,” Daenerys answered, “but he was certainly unrefined.  He didn’t even know how to introduce himself.”

Sansa looked down at the fighting in the courtyard.  “Well, he’s not exactly the boastful sort,” she said, smiling proudly.  “I suppose my brother has proven to be much wilder since that first meeting.”

Daenerys arched an eyebrow with a genuinely amused smile.  Missandei pursed her lips and looked at any and all parts of the walkway to keep from laughing.  

“Perhaps you are not so formal as you first seem, Lady Stark,” Daenerys said with a chuckle.

“Forgive me, Your Grace, but you should not call me ‘Lady Stark.’ I am not the lady of Winterfell.  I am just Lady Sansa.”

“Oh, I think not, Lady Stark,” Daenerys replied. “You are every bit a wolf of the north: territorial, loyal, and fierce.  Your brother may be King in the North, and you may have another brother beside, but even in my short time here, I can tell that this is your castle, and you are truly the Lady of Winterfell.”

A feeling Sansa hadn’t had since leaving King’s Landing grasped at her stomach.  It was the same feeling that came with nearly every conversation.  It was a test.  Daenerys was looking for a lie, or even a whiff of disloyalty.

“I run this castle, and I’ve ruled the North in my brother’s stead, but the North belongs to its king, and its king is Jon Snow,” Sansa said, squaring her shoulders as she looked at the Dragon Queen.

Daenerys remained implacable.  “And the king has allied himself with me.”

“In more ways than one, I understand.”

Missandei’s face became serious as she darted between the two women. 

“You don’t approve?” Daenerys asked.

“It’s not my place to approve or not,” Sansa admitted, briefly looking down at her shoes.  “I am very sorry for my words last night.  Please understand, I do not want to lose another brother, by any means.”

Missandei gasped suddenly and motioned to the courtyard.  Sansa looked down to see Jon on the snowy ground, bleeding from the head. Arya screamed and lunged at the man that had likely struck the blow on Jon.  Sansa could see the rage in her sister’s eyes and picked up her skirts to run past the Dragon Queen, whom she felt close behind.

* * *

It had just been a stupid mistake.  He lowered his left arm for a fraction of a second, and one of the men landed a blow to his temple.  He hit the dirt and his vision blurred.  Even his hearing fogged as he pushed against the ground. When his faculties cleared, he stood to find Arya thrashing in Gendry’s arms as he pulled her away from a bruised and bloodied man on the ground.

“He’s all right!  He’s all right, Arya!  Look!” Gendry’s voice boomed as Jon stood to his feet.

Jon’s sight cleared and his eyes met Arya’s red gaze.  She stilled in Gendry’s arms and pushed him away before running out of the courtyard.  She bumped against a concerned Sansa who looked between her brother and sister in uncharacteristic uncertainty.  Daenerys was close behind Sansa with an equally concerned expression.

“Are you all right?” Daenerys asked, a hand outstretched to Jon befor she pulled it back.

“I’ll be fine,” Jon said, not meeting her eyes as he moved toward the man on the ground.  “Take him to the maester.”

As the men helped their comrade to his feet, Jon turned his head to look at Gendry, who was still standing where Arya had pushed him off of her.  His stance was wide and his fists were clenched at his sides.  He was steeled for a fight.  Perhaps it was the blood flowing down Jon’s face, but he was inclined to give it to the smith.

“Why did you do that?” Jon asked him.

“It’s not the first time I’ve had to hold her back...Your Grace,” Gendry replied, clearly adding the title as an afterthought.

“Jon,” Sansa said, a warning in her voice as a commotion came from the gates.

“Tyrion and the others are here,” Daenerys added.

Jon eyed Gendry again.  “I think you should return to the smithy,” he told the other man.

“Aye, I should, and I will,” Gendry said before walking past Jon in the direction Arya had gone.

“You’re going the wrong way,” Jon said darkly, following the other man’s movement with his eyes.

Gendry stopped and faced Jon once more.  “I don’t think I am, Your Grace,” he replied before continuing on his way.

A long silence followed as they watched the smith go.  Jon moved to follow him, but Daenerys grasped his wrist, stopping him.

“I don’t think now is the proper time,” she said quietly.

Missandei cleared her throat from a few feet away.  “Shall I have Lord Tyrion and Ser Davos seen to the Great Hall?” she asked, drawing their attention.

Daenerys glanced toward Sansa and said, “With Lady Stark’s permission, yes.”

“Of course, yes.  Thank you, Missandei,” Sansa replied.  “Jon, perhaps you should make yourself presentable.”

His head throbbed and his blood boiled.  He tossed away the practice sword in his hand and growled, “They know who I am. I’m presentable enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't die. But my computer did in an incident involving my laptop, a bottle of water, and a backpack. You can infer from there. Part of this story was lost (as was most of my unfinished fanfiction) but wonder of wonders, I saved most of it to the cloud I didn't know I had. Enjoy.


End file.
